India Seeking to Stop Urea Imports from Iran

Dharam Pal, the joint secretary at India’s department of fertilizer, said the South Asian country plans to boost its urea production in an attempt to revive loss-making factories and end imports from several countries, including Iran.

“We are in the process of reviving ailing plants, restart closed units, expand existing projects and build new ones,” Pal said in an interview in New Delhi, Times of India reported on Tuesday.

“The target is to wipe out urea imports completely by 2022,” he added.

India’s annual demand of urea is about 30 million tons, while the domestic production is around 22 million tons.

The country imported more than a quarter of what it consumed from Iran, Oman, and China.

Increasing local supplies of the nitrogen fertilizer would help shield Indian farmers against global price fluctuations and limit government subsidies, allowing for greater spending to spur the rural economy.